Not sure if this has been done before, no patience to check.
How many people have gotten to play with/against a DropShip?
Any interesting experiences, stories, opinions on how powerful it is, furious rants about how it decimated you? They can go here.

Me, I own one, and the day I got it I invited a DF player friend over to play against it. 1500 points total...I had the DropShip, SW Koshi, SW Arbalest, a SW Crane with dual Standard Foot inside, Tora's Claw, a Maxim full of CBAs, and a Danai. How much of it did I need? Just the Maxim full of CBAs. It was rather brutal...near the end, Erin Johnston was captured about two feet from a MechBay, and I had bypassers en route...too bad it ended.

Second time I used it, I gave it...um...one order? Open the bay. I do not even want to discuss that game...it was move for an hour, and then mix it up in the last few minutes to see what happened.

Its a tough nut to crack. The brute force way of taking one on is swarming it with mech formations. Groups of cheap BR mechs (Arbalests or Sun cobras) can poke at it and retreat for repairs.

The simplest (and most boring) way of taking it on is to park a pack of Liao Arrow IV tanks 30" out and plink away for 1 a pog.

Yeah, if you want to do it that way, I suppose you could, but on a huge board, 30 inches is a lot closer than it would seem normally, and a 'Mech can get there #### fast.
Also, an ally with a Long Tom helps.

yeah but that thing is suppose to hold 2 lances with support elements....I mean #### 1 fast lance and one command lance and you have got serious #### on your hands......imagine a lance of lights and mediums.......Mjoiners, pack hunters, then Mason Dunne and Steffani..... they base the arty then shoot it.......pull back and let the Jupiters and Atlases guard the rest i mean #### the thing really is a mobile base for an assault right.

The Aurora is only supposed to hold one lance, one 'Mech in each Mechbay. You can fit a few infantry in there too, but that would be it. Assault/Aerodyne DropShips are not really known for their carrying capacity.
Also, not that it really matters, but I do faction pure with some Wolf's Dragoons backing me up sometimes, so I really do not go for the whole 'mix up the best pieces from four factions to make an army!' thing. I think it looks better to have an army of Wolves to go with my Wolf-marked DropShip.

It is possible to crack. The dropship is #### near immune to artillery, and with its repair and support, it is #### near impossible to stop. Howeve,r thats not saying it can't be stopped.

I have a 2000 pt army that probably has a 50/50 chance agaisnt the dropship and support. I guess the best Tatic we came up with at our venue is to use artillery to move your opponent out from under the guns of the dropship, and then engage with a force twice the size of theirs, turning everything after that battle toward the dropship. Still a hard fight.

Although, next time we play with the dropship, I fully expect it to mount some Arrow IV tanks and force the person fighting against the dropship to get into range of its guns.

I have found that unless the mission calls for the dropship to be destroyed nobody will engage it. They will use helicopters and arty to stay just out of range and kill any defenders. This is the most logical way to win of course. My Highlander dropship does very little but guard my shelf these days.

See, this is why you force them to move up or fall asleep. Plink off one of their units, then retreat behind and into the ship and take a nap or taunt them while they debate whether to march forward and try to combat the thing, or hide in their own backfield and wait for the defeat to come from the death of a < 50 point unit. Most people will get fed up and risk it.

I played a game fielding my dropship and a regimental pure force of elite Swordsworn. I found the real trick was to make good use of the range on my long toms to drive my opponent to me. Once he closed, he tried to focus his attack on one turret at a time while staying out of the range of the others and I would have to drive him off with my Derrick Hasbani and Scott Tracyk and then retreat for repairs. It was a fun game and I had a lot of fun. Of course, when we played this LI was very new and no one really had much artillery capable of harming the dropship. Now the trick is to hit the dropship hard from far off with Arrow IVs and the dropship needs fast attack or counter artillery artillery to defend the ship.

Indeed the trick is not in fighting the dropship but killing more non-dropship points than is killed on your end.

And, certainly infantry is not recommended against the dropship, unless you plan to be crazy and capture a mech right outside it's own bays.

I played in the laughable game against Koshiro with an experience BR player and a n00b SS player. I have to say that my slow-as-balls highlanders kept neck and neck with the raiders... and the SS stayed in the backfield. Yeah, it was pretty bad, generally. But getting to see Leala Banach, Eribee Childs, Berry Segal, and a bunch of other high point mechs working together was freaking sweet!

Sadly this was in the days before good attack helecopters and other high-power pieces. ( back before the latest two sets )

It was still pretty fun though.

Yeah, archwright, and the rank of artillery behind the DropShip just pissed you guys off...SW Padillas, Wolf's Dragoons Snipers, and a single DF Thumper just so my teammate could get into the act. Artillery did almost nothing in that battle, though...if my second-to-last Sniper shot had stayed true, Mavis would have gone under...

I am adding something to the possible post topics here...
Has anyone gotten anything useful out of the rear turret?

Hahaha. No, never. Its a good idea in theory. By placing the rear turret towards your DZ it creates a zone for you to put your arty and any salvaged units without too much fear of them being based or captured. What usually happens is that any unit which goes salvage is gang-banged before it has a chance to limp back to base. I have yet to see anyone try to send a company of scout ATVs to try and get VC3 in the midst of an Assault Lance.

I hate playing against the Dropship. It's a stupid and pointless fight.

It's like this:

"Your bring any Liao A4 (only arty now that can hurt it I think)?"

"no"

"Okay, lets get lunch"

or

"I brought 10 Liao Arrow 4 plus support, I'll sit here and shell j00 now"

"okay. wanna get lunch?"

"sure"

and finally:

"I killed one of your units, now I'll hide like a little girl in my spaceboat."

"Okay wuss"

"wanna grab some lunch"

"alright"

"next time just use your dropship as a lunchbox"

okay then dont fight them but i like the fight (i lose agenst it every time but who cares right)